


out of the blue

by okaynextcrisis



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaynextcrisis/pseuds/okaynextcrisis
Summary: a collection of Sanctuary minifics, some canon, some au





	1. Helen & Will: things you said when you were scared

“This is the last time I’m getting on a plane with you, Magnus,” Will says through chattering teeth, rubbing his hands briskly, and a touch resentfully, up and down the arms of a parka that might have been adequate for Old City winters but is no match for the subzero temperatures of the Arctic tundra. 

Helen leans closer to the fire, trying to shelter the embers from the harsh winds. Flat plains of white snow stretch as far as they can see in all directions, offering their little camp no protection at all.  “I’m beginning to agree with you.  Although at least we didn’t crash this time.”

“No, we ran out of gas and had to make an emergency landing _in the middle of Siberia_ ,” he counters.

“Still,” Helen says.  “We’ve been through worse.”

“That’s _exactly my point_ ,” Will grouses.  “And every time, I forget to bring snacks.”

Helen snorts; she can’t help herself.  “You could always flag down a passing reindeer.”

“Or one of those Saint Bernards with the brandy,” he says wistfully.

“That was the Alps,” she points out.  “And it’s a myth.”

Will sighs.  “Damn.”

Helen leans closer to the fire.  It is a touch chilly.  “Someone will pick up our signal,” she says, gesturing at their radio, thankfully still working–for how long, she doesn’t know.  “It’s only a matter of time.”

“I hope they happen to be carrying a full steak dinner,” Will mutters.

“Next time we travel we’ll bring a few on ice.”

“Next time we travel, _you_ can fly the plane, and I’ll follow at a safe distance in a fully-stocked RV,” Will counters.

In an hour, the sun will be setting.  Then it will quickly get darker–and colder.

“It has the virtue of not having been tried,” she allows.

“Refrigerator, shower…Henry can hook up a flat screen…”  Will is beginning to smile.

“Not to mention central heating,” she suggests.

“Heated floors,” Will amends.  “And electric blankets…”

“Don’t forget the brandy,” Helen adds.  She shivers, in spite of herself.

Will shifts, across the fire, blocking a little of the wind.  “Was it this cold when the Titanic went down?”

She tilts her head, considering.  “It was…wetter.”

“Maybe they’ll tell this story years from now, too,” Will says, gesturing at the struggling fire.  “As the last great disaster before the Sanctuary camper.”

She laughs out loud.  “Maybe they will.”

It is, after all, not such a bad idea.


	2. Helen/James: things you said to me in 1955

“Explain to me the need for a stopover in Reykjavik.”

Helen allows herself to lean her shoulder against his; the seats are so small, after all.  “Because I couldn’t find us a flight from New York to Berlin that didn’t require a refueling stop somewhere.  And because I know how much you enjoy Icelandair’s complimentary cognac.”

If James is  amused (and Helen is positive he is) he is hiding it well.  “You know for a fact I hate cognac.”

Helen takes a slow sip and favors him with a bright smile.  “Must be me who enjoys it, then.”

James snorts.  “Didn’t you say it was a terrible emergency?  That the Berlin Sanctuary has what may be the world’s last remaining Lorelei, and that they can’t find a way to keep her alive?”

She had, and it is, but…. “No reason we can’t enjoy the journey a little.”

James relents, leaning back almost infinitesimally in his seat.  “I suppose it has been quite a while since we’ve had a free moment together.  Wasn’t the last time—”

Helen remembers it well, and she doesn’t want to dwell on it now.  “Are you sure you don’t want to try some?” she interrupts, lifting her glass (almost empty, now; how did that happen?) in his direction.  “Perhaps you only _think_ you don’t like it…”

“Are you auditioning for the role of my mother?” James inquires.  

“I try not to take on impossible tasks,” she informs him.

James laughs out loud.  “Since when?”

He leans closer, his lips brushing her ear.  She tries not to shiver.  “That couple over there,” he says, gesturing discreetly at a man and a woman three rows up.  “They’ve just left their spouses, and he’s already regretting it.”

Helen squints in their direction; it’s an old game.  “They both have white lines on their third fingers where wedding rings were recently removed,” she observes.  “And she’s looking at a furniture catalogue to decorate their new home, while he’s sneaking peeks at the pictures of his children in his wallet.”

James’s smile is a hard-won A.

There’s been so little of this in her life, lately.  From the fine lines forming around James’s eyes, she guesses there hasn’t been much time for rest in his days, either.

But she doesn’t have to think about that now.

She prods him gently with an elbow.  “What about those two over there?” she prompts.  “ _I_ think he’s having an affair with her best friend.”

“Helen.”  James looks almost disappointed.  “ _She’s_ having an affair wth her best friend.”  He leans closer.  “You have to look at the dust on the underside of her heels; here, let me show you—”

She lets her head rest against his shoulder.  “Yes,” she smiles.  “Please do.”


	3. Helen & Abby: in the wine cellar

Abby laughs so hard she almost spills her wine on her pink pajama bottoms.  “Will did _what_?”

Helen can’t help but smile, too.  If there’s one thing she’s learned in her years on this planet, it’s that with enough time, a number of horrifying experiences develop a tinge of humor.  

And after the last few days, Abby Corrigan could use a laugh.

“It’s true,” she answers, refilling their glasses.  “You should count yourself lucky he only tried to stop you from a lifesaving surgery.  At least he never suffocated you in a submarine.”

“Is that the closest you’ve come to dying?” Abby asks, her chin in her hand, not bothering to hide her curiosity.  “Actually dying for a second, I mean?”

Helen tilts her head, considering.  “I nearly jumped off a roof in London once, but that was really more of a–”

“You did _what_?”

Sometimes, Helen finds, it’s comforting to know that other people have had odd things happen to them, too, that you’re not singled out by the universe for the strange and troubling.

She pulls another bottle (a cabernet dated _1850_ in her father’s loopy handwriting) off the rack.  “Did Will ever tell you about my trip back in time to kill Jekyll and Hyde?”

There’s a flush to Abby’s cheeks that hasn’t been there since she was admitted to the infirmary.  “Start at the beginning, and tell me everything, I beg of you.”

Abby, Helen can already tell, is going to be just fine.


	4. Helen/Nikola: pet shelter au

“Nikola, we are not renting out the animals,” Helen insisted, scooping a gray cat out of her assistant manager’s arms before he could attach a cowboy hat to the cat’s furry ears.

“How else are they going to earn their keep?” Nikola retorted, scrambling to his feet before she could confiscate the hat. “It’s just a little modeling.”

“This is an animal shelter, and I will not allow us to become stage parents to four dogs, six cats, and an iguana,” Helen said, leveling a gaze at her employee, in case he needed reminding of the fact.

Nikola smiled brightly. “Does that mean we’re married now? Helen, this is so sudden…do the cats know? Have they watched you pining for me?”

Rolling her eyes, Helen ignored him and began to dish out dog food, to a chorus of happy howls.

Nikola leaned against the dog food, unsurprisingly not lifting a finger. “Can the iguana be the ring bearer?”


	5. Helen/James: things you said when you were crying

Helen never cries.

Helen never cries, and she isn’t weeping now, standing among the throng on the pier, but there is a telltale redness rimming her usually-bright blue eyes (a little dimmed, a little vacant, this dull, chilly gray morning) and an unfamiliar clogging to her clear voice (not so confident, not today) when she raises her lips into a pale semblance of a smile and says, “It’s good to see you, James.”

The reports in the papers had been many, and wildly conflicting (TITANIC LOST and TITANIC SAVED ran alongside causality lists and headlines of ALL PASSENGERS SAFE ABOARD CARPATHIA) but he can see the truth now, in the waves of her hair, allowed to dry damp and clearly not thought of once since; in the cuts on her hands, not salved or bandaged; in the droop of her shoulders, as though she’s forgotten she’s no longer shivering.

“Not as good as it is to see you,” he says truthfully.

She almost laughs, just the smallest snort, but it’s a relief, and a start.

“Come,” he says, gently turning her away from the mass of tearful reunions and grim, silent absences, his arm barely cupping her shoulders, applying no pressure. “Let me take you somewhere warm.”


	6. Helen gets John's powers au

The thing about Helen is, no one catches her.

* * *

 

Maybe her friends notice an odd look on her face, sometimes, a light in her eyes that sends a shiver creeping up between their shoulders even as they attribute it to their own weariness, their own fear.  

* * *

 

She examines the bodies herself.  “Someone very clever must have done this,” she observes to James over the corpse of yet another girl, dead decades before her time.  

* * *

 

John Druitt disappears the night before the wedding.  Cold feet, Nigel and James conclude the next morning, as they rally round to comfort their darling Helen.  They don’t know that he visited the Sanctuary late last night, or about the blood he noticed on Helen’s white gloves.  They don’t know about the moment of pure, shining clarity when everything suddenly made sense, or how swiftly Helen moved in that moment, faster than they could have believed.  They don’t know that as they fetch Helen tea, and mouth words like _he wasn’t good enough for you_ that a small part of Helen is laughing at their foolishness, their trust, their love…or that John’s body is hidden in the floorboards beneath their feet.

* * *

 

The thing about Helen is, no one catches her.


	7. Will/Kate, Pavorverse, things you said when you were drunk

It’s hard to imagine, now, the way things used to be.

Kate shifts in her sleeping bag, trying to ease the soreness in her back against the unyielding concrete, tightening her fingers automatically around the cool neck of the bottle. Bottle of what, she doesn’t know. She used to care, used to have opinions on scotch versus bourbon, vodka with a twist, used to mentally price the Sanctuary’s oldest vintages…now all that matters is the weight in her hand and the burn in her throat, and she doesn’t think about the Sanctuary anymore.

“You okay?”

She squints in the darkness. Will has his mask half-off, his eyes bright against the soot and sweat and smeared…is that blood? covering his face.

“Just great,” she informs him, her eyebrows quirking up, encompassing the cold, the hard floor, the muffled screams in the distance.

He nods, his face like a mask too, and she relents. It’s not so bad that he asks. It’s not like anyone else does.

She smiles. Or tries to.

“Want some?” she offers, lifting the bottle unsteadily in his direction.

“No,” he says, crouching down beside her, watching the skirmish in the distance through dented binoculars. (Henry’s, she’d remember, if she let herself remember anymore.) “Not that.”

“I’m fresh out of the 1898 merlot,” she mutters, rolling her eyes up at the jagged skyline. Will, somehow, is still, always, Will.

He doesn’t pretend to laugh, and she raises herself slowly up on her elbows. “You okay?” she asks, this time.

He lowers the binoculars, slowly. “I’m tired,” he admits.

Kate smiles. “Good news,” she informs him. “I got us a room.”

For the first time–in how long?–Will smiles.

She pulls him down into her sleeping bag, and she doesn’t think anymore.


	8. Helen & Will: on the edge of consciousness

“…blunt trauma…hematoma…relieved the swelling, now it’s…”

The world was pleasantly warm and hazy, a soft and gentle weight on his eyelids and his limbs.  All those complicated words could wait.  Everything, probably, could wait…

“…encouraging…medically-induced…”

Magnus was talking.  Magnus was talking, meaning Magnus was in control, meaning everything, probably, was going to be okay, and he could go back to sleep.

A light came closer.  “You gave us quite a scare, but I’m afraid you won’t be getting out of that pile of paperwork on your desk that easily.” 

Will smiled and snuggled into the pillow.  

He was fine.


	9. Target au

It’s a quarter to ten, fifteen minutes to close, and as far as Helen, who has been the manager of the Old City Target for as long as anyone can remember, is concerned…it shows.

“Welcome to Starbucks, can I take your order?” Kate grumbles, her green apron wrinkled, leaning her elbows on the bakery display.

It’ll smudge the glass, but Helen knows Abby, the best Starbucks manager they’ve ever had, will double-check that Kate made it shine again.

She waves at Abby, hunched over her psych textbook behind the counter, and continues on her rounds. She stops to arrange the display of the clearance items near the front of the store, to adjust the hang of a hideous but trendy t-shirt in juniors’, smiling at the last customers of the night as she goes.

Her walkie-talkie hisses, and Will’s beleaguered voice crackles through the little speaker. “Magnus, I have a line of seven customers and I’m the only checkout open. Can’t Biggie open up a register?”

But Biggie, who’s been working here almost as long as Helen, is manning the customer service desk, and besides, it’s good for Will to learn to handle these situations himself. She hasn’t told him, but she’s positive he has assistant manager potential.

Cheerfully, she turns her walkie off.

“I could sell you the new iPhone 7, but your 5C can be fixed just fine,” she hears Henry say, as she approaches Electronics. “Here, dude, let me see your phone…”

Henry Foss is the smartest employee she’s ever had in this section, the most thoughtful, the most conscientious…and somehow, also, the worst. She’ll have to talk to him again, or the next time they have a visit from Corporate, he really will be fired.

She can usually handle John, their Corporate rep, just fine…but it would certainly help if Henry could make a sale…any sale.

“Hey, boss!” Henry calls cheerfully, as he hands back the phone to his euphoric customers, who will adore him but now not spend a dime. “Good night, huh?”

“Why don’t you just let him go?” John had asked, as she’d walked him to his car, a brand-new two-seater Helen guessed cost more than she made in a year, at the end of his last visit.

“I don’t like to give up on people,” she’d informed him.

John had rubbed his third finger, bare, now, for going on two years, and said nothing.

Henry could get another job, easily, of course. Nikola, who manages the Kmart across town, has been trying to steal him away for months…but Helen just can’t bring herself to do it.

Maybe she’ll bake his favorite m&m cookies tonight, and have a little talk with him before his shift tomorrow.

“Magnus!” Will’s voice wails from the pocket of her crisp khakis, where she stuffed her walkie. “I need help up here, I’m going to be murdered by an unruly mob–”

She smiles. “Coming, Will,” she sings into the speaker…and then heads to the breakroom instead.

She deserves a cup of tea, doesn’t she?


	10. Helen/James: politics au

“The Prime Minister’s on a secure line, Madame President,” her private secretary, T. B. Guy rumbles, closing the Oval Office door firmly behind him as he retreats back to his desk, where he will bark at staffers and lobbyists and dignitaries until they cower in submission and meekly agree to make an appointment and come back at the President’s convenience.

Helen smiles. She has the best White House staff in history.

She lifts the receiver, leaning back in her chair. “Mr. Prime Minister. What can I do for you today?”

She lets the today linger just a beat, to remind The Right Honorable James Watson that these calls of his have become, of late, a daily occurrence.

“You know bloody well what I’m calling about,” James sputters. “Have you entirely lost your mind, or is American foreign policy now being guided by a distracted small child? In fact, get Ashley on the phone, would you? I’m sure I’d have a much more sensible conversation about UN initiatives with your four-year-old daughter than with Greg Addison.”

She props her feet up on her heavy wood desk, her red heels dangling over the ornate eagle curving around the seal of the pristine carpet. “Do go on, Mr. Prime Minister,” she drawls. “You know how I depend on your deeply pessimistic and apparently endless counsel.”

James doesn’t even pause. “And while we’re on the subject–”

Maybe…maybe she’ll have T. B. push her next appointment back, just a little.


	11. Helen/James: evening out au

“I suppose you did promise me an evening out,” James said, studiously keeping the elbows of his Saville Row dinner jacket off the slightly sticky blue table of their booth at McDonald’s.“You didn’t say anything more specific about the amenities.”

“I’m clever that way,” Helen agreed, helping herself to the lurid paper package that purported to contain some sort of potato product.  “And I really did think we could thwart that Abnormal smuggling ring _and_ make it to the governor’s party.  Besides, isn’t this better than a stuffy evening full of dreadful politicians?”

James was hardly a worshipper at the altar of ubiquitous technology, but he couldn’t help but wish, just a little, for the easy grasp of one of those dreadful camera phones, to capture Helen Magnus in an evening gown, mud on her bare feet and blood in her hair, the florescent lights above warring with the darkness outside, shining down on the triumphant glow beneath the smudges on her face.

“Who needs vintage Dom Pérignon when you can have some sort of…milkshake derivative,” James grumbled, putting a single fry in his mouth grudgingly.

It was perfectly crispy, and he resented it with the kind of bitterness Nikola held for the electric lightbulb.

“It’s a McFlurry,” Helen corrected, in the same tone she’d used to correct his calculations back at Oxford.  “And if you’d try it, you’d…despise it.  But at least it would be a more informed sort of hatred.”

“I’ll stay in the dark, thank you very much,” James retorted, snatching another fry.

Helen smiled, victorious, holding her McFlurry aloft.  “Happy New Year, James.”


	12. victorian out of the blue au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> touchdownpossum (go watch her newest Sanctuary vid, I cried) came up with the idea, and also every one of the historical facts. I hope I didn't mess up too badly!

Abigail Zimmerman always feels braver about this particular act of charity in theory; when she’s telling William about her plans for the day over the morning’s eggs and bacon, his newspaper rustling, or in the sitting room that night, the light from the gas lamps dancing on the walls, recounting her day’s adventures like a soldier returned from Calcutta.  She feels decidedly less optimistic about the undertaking now, standing on the steps of the great Druitt house, next in the row to her own home, but vastly different: old and proud and always silent, like a monster that would stay perfectly still until, unknowing, you had wandered straight into its jaws.

But Helen Druitt is a neighbor (just on the other side of the wall, even) and so often alone, and charity, Abby’s mother had impressed upon her at an early age, begins at home.

And so Abby smooths the folds of her nicest dress, knocks decisively with the big ornate door knocker, and promises herself (futilely, and she knows it even now) that she will read fewer silly novels.

A maid appears, and Abby smiles brightly.  

The maid does not, her full lips held in something that might be irritation, or possibly amusement, something that makes Abby feel less like a guest, and more like an interloper.

But Abby’s smile does not fade, because rudeness in others in no excuse for ill manners in oneself, and maybe the poor thing is having a difficult day.  Maybe she’s been scolded (Abby cannot imagine Mrs. Druitt doing anything so…vivid, but that butler of hers seems always on the verge of eating one whole; Abby is always secretly relieved when business keeps him elsewhere, and Kate is the one to answer the door); maybe her chores were more burdensome than usual this morning; maybe some private vexation or grief eats away at her, distracts her from basic civilities.  Abby will have to try harder, that’s all.  She’ll win them all over in the end; she always does.

Inside, the Druitt house is scarcely less frightening than on the outside; there is something forbidding, almost threatening, in the lush crimson rugs overlaying the gleaming wood of the floors (genuine imports, Abby is positive), the sprawling curve of the bannister along the great stairs, the twinkling crystal of the dustless chandelier above.  (Perhaps Mrs. Druitt’s butler, a very tall man, tends to them himself.  Certainly Abby cannot imagine Kate lowering herself to these kinds of menial tasks, although she must, mustn’t she?)  She follows Kate (trying not to stare, as though this house is not grander than many that she frequents) into a small sitting room, where Mrs. Druitt waits.

She is sitting very straight; she is dressed in lavender; she is, as always, quietly intimidating.

But it’s been six months, almost, since she and this woman have been next-door neighbors, and if Abby can’t help feeling intimidated, by God, she can keep it from showing.  It’s only that she’s older, perhaps, and more expensively (although simply) dressed, that her sitting room is full of paintings that make Abby wish she knew something sophisticated about art, and that her gaze is always steady in a way that makes Abby’s eyes want to dart away…

Abby’s well-trained eyes do not dart away.

Smiles are produced, pleasantries are exchanged, and Abby finds herself seated across from Mrs. Druitt, wishing desperately,  _devoutly_ , for something to say.

“I’m glad the rains have finally stopped,” Abby begins at last, latching with gratitude upon the safety of an easy topic.  “My umbrella can finally dry out.”

Mrs. Druitt’s smile is faint.  “I rather like the rain.”

Of course she does.  She probably finds it  _inspiring_ , probably paints endlessly on those days, while Abby sits impatiently by the window, writing endless letters to her friends on the boredom of bad London weather.  

“Well, it’s important to have both,” Abby puts in gamely.  “Sunny days and…and rainy ones.”

If she knew Mrs. Druitt better, she might laugh and say  _that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever said_ , and Mrs. Druitt would laugh, and Abby would say  _but not as bad as that thing Sheila said at the Benefit for Orphan Children, did you hear?_  and then they’d both laugh…

But she doesn’t, and so there is only silence, and Mrs. Druitt nodding politely.

“How is your husband settling in?” Mrs. Druitt asks, apparently feeling that it’s her turn.  “With his new practice?”

“Very well,” Abby is proud to say.  “His patients are lucky to have him.”

Perhaps she should be more modest about her husband’s accomplishments, perhaps she should say something more tempered…but William has worked so hard, and deserves his beautiful little office, his name engraved on the gate, the shiny stethoscope hanging around his neck.  

Mrs. Druitt smiles, but faintly.  Perhaps it seems hopelessly naive to her, Abby’s pride in her husband, when  _John Druitt_  is a name that shows up in newspapers.  Abby and William were invited, once, to a party here, in this house; Abby can’t say she enjoyed herself, or that either Mr. or Mrs. Druitt seemed to, but it was very grand.

Abby can’t help but prefer her smaller, infinitely warmer home, with its louder, more cheerful gatherings.  

“London always needs more good doctors,” is all Mrs. Druitt says.  “You need someone to call, someone you trust, when…”

She trails off, her eyes far away.  

Abby is grateful when Kate brings the tea.

“How is Mr. Druitt?” Abby asks after they are settled with cups and saucers, trying to bring them back to safer ground.

“His work keeps him quite busy,” Mrs. Druitt replies.

“I would think he would miss every moment he’s away,” Abby says generously, casting her eyes at the vaulted ceilings.  “You have a lovely home.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Druitt says, almost wryly.  “It’s…it’s a bit large for just the two of us.”

Mrs. Druitt must not have any children, or she would have spoken of them.  Abby feels a rush of warmth towards her; it must be terrible, to be denied the gift of children.  Abby and William haven’t been blessed that way yet; it’s only been six months, but Abby worries, sometimes…

Abby follows Mrs. Druitt’s gaze, across the parlor.  Her eyes rest on a portrait, not hanging prominently over the fireplace, but tucked away in an alcove: a little girl, her cheeks blooming, her blonde hair curling in ringlets, her arms around a kitten with big green eyes.  It looks too new to be an antique, and something about the brushstrokes, the rosy palette, reminds Abby of the other paintings she’s seen in this house, the ones that made her envious of her hostess’s accomplishments…

“She’s very pretty,” Abby says, cheered to have a way to compliment Mrs. Druitt’s paintings.  “Is she a relative of yours?”

Mrs. Druitt looks startled, as though she had forgotten, until Abby spoke, that she was even in the room.  “Her name was Ashley,” she says, her voice very soft, as though she is talking to herself more than Abby.  “She was my daughter.”

But the Druitts don’t have a daughter.  Abby has lived on the other side of their walls for nearly half a year; if someone sneezes too loudly, Abby hears it.  And there’s been no mention of her: not a reference to a boarding school, or a trip to Paris…not a postcard, not a word…

“Your house wasn’t vacant before you moved in,” Mrs. Druitt continues, although Abby had not asked.  “A man named Nigel Griffin lived there, since before John and I bought our house.  He lived alone, no family, and we all…well, we all became very close.”  

She clears her throat.  “When Ashley was sixteen, he became ill.  John…John told me it was too dangerous, but I insisted on going to see him…I  _insisted_ …”

Abby wonders if it would be kinder to interrupt her, to feign some kind of emergency, but her deeply curious soul won’t allow her to do it.  It’s another terrible habit she should break, like those novels…

Mrs. Druitt’s eyes are clear, and hold Abby’s steadily.  “I thought I was risking myself, you understand.  I thought that I had a duty, that whatever consequences might result would fall on me, and me alone.  And then Ashley…and then Ashley fell ill.”

Abby does not ask what happened next, or why neither Mr. or Mrs. Druitt never speak of their daughter, or why Mrs. Druitt has not told this story before now.  

She says only “I’m very sorry,” as she is…in more ways than one.  They sip their tea, quietly, Mrs. Druitt probably counting down the moments until she can end the visit, and Abby desperately calculating if there is some way she can atone for this visit at some future occasion.  If Mr. Druitt were held at knifepoint, perhaps, and Abby wrestled the weapon away from the assailant…

There is some consolation, she tries to convince herself, amid the silence of the parlor, in how hard William will laugh at her clumsiness, and how sympathetic he will be, when she tells him this story tonight, with perhaps a more than usually generous splash of cognac in her glass…but she can’t quite, in this moment, make herself feel it.


End file.
